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Posts tagged with the category Change

An Unexpected Journey into ‘Humanistic’ Economic Models

As I began my PhD journey 3 years ago I never thought it would lead to exploring economic models. In my graduate program in the 90s I had taken two semesters of economics and healthcare finance and I must admit it was painful. I considered those courses my foreign languages. As a nurse, I was and continue to be all about the...

Education Contributing to Issues and Being a Solution for Environmental Sustainability

The world of education is under a tremendous amount of pressure to serve two masters. Traditional approaches are called for to ensure students gain opportunities for the next step in their learning journey and new thinking and innovation are required to ensure students are prepared for a world that is ever changing and uncertain. These differing...

Transforming a City Once Divided- Reflections on the Fall of the Berlin Wall

This year on November 9, the people of Berlin celebrated the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. A business trip to explore partnerships with German universities took me to Berlin one month before that anniversary to see what has been, and continues to be, an amazing transformation. What I saw taking place there truly is a...

The Evolution of Chinese Worldviews

The evolutionary theorist and psychologist, Clare W. Graves, puzzled by an inability to answer his students’ questions about which theory of human development was correct, dedicated his life to exploring the differences in personalities of mature adults as they relate to their human experience. From over a thousand essays...

The Importance of Gender Equity

In my last blog Strengthening our Social Fabric, I mentioned Sweden’s emphasis on gender equity as a way to create a good society. Here I will further consider the systemic implications of gender equity in hopes that we consider its importance to all societies.
The Global Gender Gap report (2013) rates 136 countries on their ability to...

Learning Across Boundaries - The ISSS-2014 Conference in Washington, D.C.

The 58th meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences was held George Washington University, in Washington, D.C. Gerald Midgley president for this year, and his conference team, are to be commended for creating a great week of learning.
The theme of the conference was “Learning...

The Evolutionary Journey of Life

Life is a journey. I have been keenly aware of that for a good portion of my life. I guess I became aware of the power of the metaphor in my early twenties when I broke away from some cultural patterns that diverted me from what a friend called “the franchised life” — that more or less predictable and predefined path for a...

Strengthening Our Social Fabric

Recently I travelled to Finland for a conference which created an opportunity to travel around the Scandinavian countries. The country that left the strongest impression was Sweden. We took the ferry from Vassa Finland to Umea Sweden and as soon as we got on the ferry, I noticed something different in the way Swedish people interact with...

Seeing Beyond Boundaries that Divide Us in Our Quest for Social Justice for ALL – Part 1

July is usually a rather reflective month for me as I embrace yet another year of progression in age with a deep sense of gratitude for the gift of life. The past two weeks have particularly been reflective and thought-provoking for me as I seek to gain deeper insights on a variety of things. These include the direction I am taking with my...

Conversations About the Future Systems Research

There is a long connection between Saybrook and systems conversations, which continues to this day. The semi-annual conversations have been hosted by the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR), and were historically known as the Fuschl Conversations (due to their location at Fuschl am See in Austria). Bela Banathy, the founder...

The Network Organization and Its Hybrid Workplace Systems

Geographically distributed, functioning in a global context and ongoing engagement with internal and external professionals are apt key descriptors of the 21st century organization.
The complex pulsating networks in which an organization comes to life and thrives, in reality, is the organizations itself; while the planned and spontaneous...

Cross-cultural Encounters: A Gateway to Transformative Learning

This month I travelled to Finland for a conference on Culture, Values, and Justice. An interesting group of scholars attended who were exploring the many aspects, interrelationships, and applications of ideas that comprise these three areas. To me, these three subjects and their interrelationships suggest three questions that define...